Anything But Civil
by Alana C. Jones
Summary: In a battle of possibly the worst war in American history, Alfred meets a soldier that's strangely familiar, almost as familiar as the weakened man that looked back at him out of the mirror. A collection of Civil War drabbles.
1. Face-off

This is just something that I wrote between Monday and today in the time I had after the exams, after my brain was turned to mush, so this is probably really confusing, really lame, and historically inaccurate, but I decided I would share it with you all anyway. I'm sorry.

Hetalia and all associated characters, ideas, creations, etc. belong to Hidekaz Himaruya.  
My own brain still belongs to me, I hope.

* * *

There was near silence. Only the rustling of bushes could be heard, faintly, as the blue-clad men snuck up on the enemy camp. One of those was a blue-eyed, blonde-haired man. He looked barely more than a boy, but, truth be told, he was the oldest one there, almost one hundred. The foot soldiers called him Jones, and a few called him Alfred, but the generals, admirals, and the President knew better. They called him America.

_I'm not all of America_, he thought._ I'm just the United States. _So many of his states had left him. They'd apparently formed their own nation, but in the battle Alfred had fought, he had yet to meet this nation.

The commander signaled for them to halt, and Alfred almost forgot to duck down. He was fogging his brain with all these thoughts of the separation. Ahead, a fire surrounded by men in grey could be seen , the uniforms of his lost children and siblings. Alfred readied his gun and watched for the commander's orders, smoke burning his bare eyes. How he wished he still had his glasses. Alfred blinked out the smoke as well as he could.

"CHARGE!" called the commander. The enemy all turned with a start as the men leapt from the bushes and flew towards them. Soon the grey became a blur as they rushed for their guns.

Alfred and the rest of his line aimed into the mass. The shots cracked through the air. A few went down, but Alfred missed, hitting a tree between two soldiers. Moments later, more shots were fired, and the enemy had grabbed their muskets and were getting organized. "Hurry!" the commander yelled to Alfred and the others that were still reloading. Alfred lifted his loaded musket to his shoulder and aimed. He couldn't afford to miss this time. He targeted a man near the front of the platoon, that looked like their commander. He had hardly moved since the fight started, and he only carried a sword in his left hand. Alfred held the gun steady as it jerked back. Searing pain shot through Alfred's shoulder, making him drop his gun. A sticky warmth ran down his arm and through his shirt, and the sickly, familiar smell of blood reached his nose.

Clutching his bleeding arm, he looked out onto the field. None of the enemy had fired. They were still loading and aiming their guns. A few had even broken formation. Alfred's eyes followed them as they approached the center of the field. Alfred's bullet had landed in their commander's left shoulder. His sword lay on the ground beside him, but he remained standing. He ordered the soldiers back in line and picked back up his sword.

Alfred was in shock._ That man shouldn't be able to sustain such injuries and keep fighting_, he thought as the commander yelled, "Fire at will," and a chaotic fury of shots soon rang out. Alfred knew he could continue fighting with his wound, but he was a nation and it would be difficult. This guy was going to be hard to beat.

Quickly, Alfred bound his wound in a makeshift bandage and took back up his gun. He reloaded and fired another bullet into the grey commander's right leg, hoping that would stop his advance. Alfred saw him drop to the grass as he, himself, felt his left leg let out a bloody yell and give way. He used his gun for support as he pulled himself back up. A glance across the field caused him to almost slip and fall to the ground again.

That guy was standing again. He just refused to stay down. He had fallen behind though. Both armies were advancing. All of Alfred's soldiers, including the commander, were preoccupied with the now well-armed enemy and tending for the mortally wounded. Nobody else noticed the swordsman circle around the heat of the fight. Alfred scrambled to reload his musket. He brought it up to his shoulder and grit his teeth so that he thought the enamel would be ground off, but the soldier had already ducked into the brush. Alfred knew there wouldn't be time for a second shot and didn't dare fire. Instead, he followed the shadow as it got farther away for only a moment and came closer as he went around to the same position the Union troops had attacked from. The shadow shortened and vanished.

"Dammit!" Alfred muttered, keeping watch for the shadow reemerge. He tried not to think about the battle now raging on behind him, about the crimson coating the field would now have, the horror that would occasionally overcome a soldier when he saw his mangled friend of family on the other ground, the silence that would follow the fight, so powerful that only death was capable of creating it. Most of all, he tried not to think about how it was his people killing their own kin. He tried not to think about any of it, but they were only too well imprinted in his brain.

He started to turn towards the battle, but a shiver in the leaves brought him back to his sense. The first thing Alfred noticed as the man lunged at him were his glasses. They looked just like the ones he had lost. Then he noticed the eyes behind the glasses, red with bloodlust, but nevertheless, the same. Alfred realized why he had suffered the exact mirror injuries of the ones he'd given to the man now lunging at him with his sword. Alfred saw the man's ocean-blue eyes clear as the realization too dawned on him, but it was too late. The man plunged the sword though Alfred's chest and pierced Alfred's heart, his own heart.

* * *

So yeah. That's that. I hope that wasn't too terribly awful for you. If you people that actually read this think I need to make it M, like, if a fair few of you think that, I'll change it.

Thanks for reading if you did. Again, I'm sorry. I don't even know how or why I thought to write this, but if you like it, then that's awesome.


	2. And so it begins

A prelude of sorts. Really, just a second drabble.  
I don't own Hetalia or America. Or Abraham Lincoln.

* * *

Abe was in an important meeting with representatives from the House and Senate, as well as various state officials that had been willing to make the journey to D.C. He was not surprised that SC's governor hadn't shown. The peace talks were to seek a moderate solution for the young country, one that would avoid the horrors of war, but the growing feeling of unrest in the pit of Alfred's stomach told him that his people were beyond talking. He wondered if the first blows hadn't already been struck.

If war was to be the outcome, Alfred knew where he would stand. Despite the few friends he'd once had from Virginia, he would stand by the North. It might nearly kill him to desert the South, but they were the ones who wished to abandon, and he wasn't going to leave those who stayed with him. "I don't want to pick sides at all," he muttered aloud. He looked to the conference building, hoping, praying, that his people would rise above the odds. He had finally gotten himself on decent terms with his brother, although the wounds of war were still clearly far from healing. He didn't need to start fighting with himself.

Alfred had begun to look at his shoes, but the sound of doors opening drew his attention back to the building. He quickly stood up as the men began filing out, scanning over the top of men's heads for his tall boss. Many of the men who came out of the room were silent; others were talking quietly to the other representatives from their state. Alfred couldn't see anyone talking across the Mason-Dixon Line. The uneasy feeling seemed to have spread to his head. He felt dizzy and the men coming out of the hall were becoming a blur. He felt his feet stagger underneath him and give out. He couldn't tell who was running toward him as he fell. An eighty year old musket and a muddy battlefield flashed in the front of his mind before he collapsed.

"Jones, Jones. Alfred, Alfred, wake up!" The familiar voice sounded closer and closer with every word. Alfred slowly opened his eyes to see, somewhat blurrily, the welcoming, bearded face of his president and friend. "Alfred, good, you're awake."

"What happened?" Alfred inquired, attempting to sit up and settling for resting on his elbows. He looked at the crowd gathered around him. Several others, although not all, that had left the meeting hall had clearly were kneeling around him. Virginia's governor was among the people, and he barely restrained an instinct to scowl at the man. He couldn't understand why. The man had come to his aid, after all. Alfred had no reason to be angry at him.

Even worse, Alfred was slowly beginning to realize as he looked around the concerned citizens; he lacked any contempt towards the people of Boston or New York yet hadn't any sympathy for the people of Atlanta and Charleston. Ever since tensions had arisen between his people, before he even began fighting to be his own entity, he'd felt mixed emotions about either side. North or South, he'd felt compassion and hatred for them at the same time. Now, he felt less confliction of emotions. Although far less confusing, it was far more concerning. He had not destroyed the connection to his people in the south, so they must have chosen to sever it themselves instead. One person stuck out most prominently in his head. "Bianca," he muttered.

At this point, most of the statesmen had scattered, needing to return to their respective states. The only ones remaining were Alfred and Abe. Al slowly stood up, politely refusing Abe's help. "South Carolina's gone," he told Abe, looking up to see the taller man's face. Alfred touched his own face, feeling that something else was amiss. His glasses were gone. He continued, "And it looks like she won't be the only one to leave us."

"It would appear war has become inevitable. You can't survive as a nation divided," Abe commented.

Again, the musket appeared in Alfred's mind, accompanied by a stifling room filled with ambitious men, one specifically reading aloud, "…and of Right ought to be Free and Independent…"


End file.
